
DELLA ROBINSON KING 














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Boole K 5^ 

CopyrightN 0 .. 


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THOUGHTS 


OF A THOUGHTFUL WOMAN. 



DELLA ROBINSON KING. 

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Editor of the South Dakota Messenger. 






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25 cents. 


Copyright 1898. 


PUBLISHED AT 

MESSENGER OFFICE, 
SCOTLAND, S. D. 

CL 


2nd COPY 
7 898 , ’ 


VIVA'S" 









5208 





DEDICATION. 


To the noble women of South Da¬ 
kota, working for liberty, with little 
money, with small encouragement, I 
dedicate this little book, trusting it 
will help. 

T ruly, 

Della Robinson King, 

Mound Cottage, 

Scotland, S. D., 

Dec. 22, 1897. 
























































































































































THOUGHTS OF A THOUGHTFUL WOMAN. 


1 

If mothers could vote—the personal, live interest 
aroused from active voting would enable her to exert a 
more powerful influence on her sons and daughters. 
Then politics would enter into the family conversation 
as it has never done before. 

2 

A few years ago when the advocates of Woman Suf¬ 
frage chanced to be mentioned, a vision of a stern, head¬ 
strong, ancient maid came before the mind—hair cut 
short and straight as a graveyard, a severe masculine 
attire to set it off—sour because some man had not giv¬ 
en her a chance to say “Yes,” in consequence of which 
she had turned natural enemy to the disappointing sex! 
But today the vision has changed ! Now we know the 
sweet mother face, the young girl’s fresh, earnest face 
and bright eyes, or our successful business woman’sgen- 
tle manners, come as a reality and a relief. No men¬ 
acing, no repulsion, all as it should be in these progres¬ 
sive times. 

8 

Columbus would never have had the means to sail 
over the Western Seas if Queen Isabella had not arous¬ 
ed sentiment to secure money for the enterprise. He 
had pled for twenty years in the courts of men and a 

i 



woman in authority came to his relief. It was the per- 
sistance and encouragement of his wife that kept him so 
unfalteringly to the attainment of his great purpose in 
life. 

4 

Many argue that the majority of women would not 
vote if they had enfranchisement. True, they might not 
vote ordinarily but if a gieat vital question should be the 
issue, then the average woman, who likes her ease, would 
rise to the occasion, and meet the issue with a practical 
power she has not to day. 

5 

There are a very large number of men who are by 
their training simply politicians who will regard the vic¬ 
tory of woman’s equality merely a triumph of sex. 
These men are prone to the realization of the ideals 
which are guiding the women of this campaign. Think¬ 
ing men are looking further and are seeking to see 
the reality of this manifest awakening of the minds of 
the women working to secure reforms which have been 
for a long time necessary. 

6 

The most sublime things are often the least compre¬ 
hended. There are those in commenting upon woman’s 
work in the campaign for enfranchisement who say that 
it is affectation, but such ideas come from the ignorant 
and superficial. The people, (who do not look for un¬ 
worthy motives in the works of uplifting and of aspira¬ 
tion) admire and are softened. 

7 

There is a bravery for a woman as well as a bravery 
for a man, but their’s ordinarily, should be quiet. Si¬ 
lence is the feast of the gods; thunder, their anger. 
Corruption, ignorance, disrespect for law and decency 


arouse a peaceable citizen to action ; injustice arouses 
everyone, but the unjust; “Justice has its anger and the 
wrath of Justice is Progress.” 

8 

Does Power rob or threaten advancement? Power 
to act along the lines of advancement raises the soul to 
freedom, lofty and far-reaching as Nature. It is Preju¬ 
dice that will work our defeat. Prejudices are the rob¬ 
bers that threaten our heads. 

9 

There is a directness of purpose with the politician 
of today which pays no attention to the stumbling 
blocks of conscience, sworn faith, justice and duty, 
which are obstacles in woman’s path. That is his un¬ 
spoken reason for opposing woman’s vote. 

Citizens: do not stay in bad company. 

10 

The greatest thoughts are most gentle, thesublimest. 
acts are not valient deeds of war. Nature’s works are 
ma jestically silenl; and so is woman, through the calm 
advancement of quiet living, better qualified for the re- 
sponsibilites so soon coming, than man, in his more 
noisy nature, is capable of discerning. 

11 

It is said, if women have the same opportunity with 
men in all industries, that men will be forced out of em¬ 
ployment. What did men do for employment when 
most of the manuel industries were carried on in the 
home—such as spinning, carding and weaving, making 
hose and clothes, hats and bonnets, mittens and gloves, 
brewing and baking, pickling and preserving, making 
butter, cheese, candles, soap? All these industries are 
grown extensively from rudiments, both in quantity and 
quality. Cannot women share in work what they once 


3 


(lid entirely ? And ought they not receive the same pay 
for the same work ? 

12 

A great many men say that “they are willing to give 
women the privilege of voting’’ but they can’t see what 
benefit it would be. Gentlemen : isn’t there a satisfac¬ 
tion, to say the least, of having the privilege of expres¬ 
sing your opinion in regard to a political or civil matter? 
Can you not understand that there would be the same 
satisfaction for women as for yourselves ? 

IB 

Many men speak so approvingly and admiringly of 
“retiring women.” That is all right and the best any 
one can do unless he has a talent or genius that will not 
let him rest. Then is it not a glory to speak, or sing, 
or write, or act for the good of the Public, whether man 
or woman ? And are not such people always the most 
modest and retiring? Sex cuts no figure when “the 
Lord of the Harvest” asks what we have done with our 
talents that He gave. 

14 

Speaking of women having to serve on jury if they 
enter into citizenship : It would be rather distasteful 
to mingle with the jurymen usually called to serve on 
trial at this present time,—men illiterate, uncouth, with¬ 
out much principle, lazy and always anxious to be sub- 
poenied to earn a dollar or so, but perhaps women might 
elevate that almost dubious profession also, as her task 
has always been to elevate. The writer’s husband has 
been subpoenied once in 11 years—so the task is not great. 

15 

Some men think that all this noise and wrangling 
about wimin voting is a great joke and that as soon as 
women once have the privilege, they will cease to care 


4 


for the ballot. Their dignity (or self conceit) is too 
great to allow it! Those are the men who are out of 
place in having the privilege to vote and are a detri¬ 
ment to any sphere in life. 

1G 

For the past quarter of a century, and even in less 
time, women have improved every opportunity for the 
betterment of their condition, and the advancement of 
woman’s work. Women have accomplished more in the 
last twenty years than raeP, with twice the opportuni¬ 
ties, and no hindrances, have accomplished in ten times 
that period. 

What would he the dismay of our grandmothers if 
they could look around today and see a woman of edu¬ 
cation and culture occupying a chair in some of our best 
colleges; their alarm to enter a court room and find a 
woman standing before a jury pleading for the accused 
and looked-np to as a lawyer of rank and understand¬ 
ing? Imagine their concern for theiuture of a young 
lady about to be married who has never pieced a quilt! 

All this advancement and independence has brought 
about a new type of women—all brought about under 
the broadening influence of education—a woman who 
recognizes that she is the equal of man in every sense of 
the word. 

Forty-five years ago Boston, the center of culture 
and refinement, for the first time, admitted girls, to a 
high-school education ! 

Opposition was so strong against women becoming 
educated (that is, against their trying for an education, 
for very few men considered them capable of learning) 
that women of strong character founded seminaries for 
ladies. Oh! the clamor against it! It would ruin their 
health and unfit them for their sphere! But women of 


today are not only educated, but are growing stronger, 
now they know they are free from the throes of custom. 
The age when weakness and langor were admired in a 
woman is passed ! 

Brave women were those who rose at the call of du¬ 
ty amidst the rankest, most narrow minded opposition 
of men. Every woman of today should have the names 
of these brave women at their tongue’s end—Mary Lyon, 
Catherine Beecher, Mrs. Emma Willard, Catherine Fisk, 
Martha Whiting, Mary A. Livermore, Addie Knight, 
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia S. Cornell. 

It is not now so much a question of education, as 
of position for which women must contend. It seems 
that they must fight just as hard and as earnestly and 
as courageously as the pioneers of education for this new 
step. It has been the same opposition right along,— 
fighting against Prejudice, the giant oppressor of Truth— 
a position won by one woman here, a point gained by 
another there, but success is surely coming—Courage, 
sisters, the ranks are filling every day ! 

17 

When the History of this century is written even the 
most conservative historian will have to find a large 
place for women in his pages. 

Looking over a newspaper printed in George Wash¬ 
ington’s time, the writer read a poem signed “Written by 
a Woman.” I smiled ! But how pathetic it is after all! 
How much genius has been lost through false modesty 
and Prejudice! 

The time has passed these twenty years when it was 
considered unchristian and disgraceful for a woman to 
sign her name to a poem or to speak her thoughts to a 
listening public. 

Sentiment and inborn submissiveness are disappear- 


6 


ing before the stern reality of WHAT WOMEN ARE! 

18 

Do you men (fathers) expect, after your daughters 
have advanced, grade by grade, with your boys, in the 
Public schools, reciting, writing, singing, debating—what¬ 
ever their talents direct, you are going to keep them 
from these pursuits after they reach 18 and 20? If you 
could have kept them out of the schools (which you 
couldn’t) you could have kept them “down in their 
places,” but you never can now! 

19 

As what we call “civilization” advances, and men be¬ 
hold what glory and grandeur they may reach, more 
work is created to gratify their desires. One rainy after¬ 
noon an old African, naked and apparently enjoying the 
rain, harangued Missionary Day in the following man¬ 
ner: “Look at me, out here in de rain,—you fraid to 
get wet—spoil clothes ! Look at dat chair, you have to 
sit in and dat table you write on—all work—-work—ugh ! 
I eat berries and things I can pick up in de woods—you 
have to cook your food—and work—work ! Your chair 
breaks,—you have to mend him, ugh ! 

That is the way—we want more and more as we dis¬ 
cern uses for farther advancement, and women are like 
men, they want to get all they can also—and the men 
can’t hold them back. But all this is laudable ! 

20 

Men may ‘grant’ enfranchisement, but, never-the- 
less, it is the force of circumstances that gives it. Men 
have the fatal simplicity to believe that it is they who 
give, and can take away, but it is profound Truth that 
it is the divine right of women as well as of men, 
however graciously given by the men, and whatever the 
struggle may have been. 


7 


21 

The essential basis^of politics is Justice,—that is the 
solution of continuity, and however blind to the presence 
of facts, the portion of divine authority must fall, man¬ 
tlelike, upon the juster element of the human race, 
its women ! 

22 

The amalgamating the wholly ideal, the beyond, 
with human reality and common practice, is Advance¬ 
ment,—slow but stupendous. This is the work of the 
wise and good. Revolution works this end where the 
human reality and commonplace seem to overpower the 
best. Then the force of an avalanche is needed to right 
things. Otherwise Progress is peaceful. Revolutions fur¬ 
nish our dynasties. The next dynasty is Woman’s! 
Revolutions once contented themselves with a man, an 
Alexander, a Charlemagne, a Napoleon, a Cromwell, a 
Luther, but the dynasty (making) will content itself only 
with the family, and woman is its sympathy, its full¬ 
ness, and its future! 

23 

What is a Revolution? First it is ideas accepted. 
Truth revealed. Then comes the force of acceptance. 
Lessons of the past, discontent with the present, a com¬ 
promise with the future, and society composes itself 
once more. 

24 

Men are thrusting out ridicule to retard woman’s 
progress, to tame down their work, to restrain their ar¬ 
dency, to hold back the event of their power. Ridicule 
strikes hard but ic has not the repose of Right and its 
viciousness is too apparent for Logic and Fact. 

25 

Know ye this assurance: There is no inertia to- 


8 



day. This is the sign of the limes; thought, activity, 
progress. Women will not go back into obscurity. 
Women have awakened to their intrinsic worth, they 
know the speech of interest, they appreciate the purpose 
of thought. 

26 

The people, the unit, decipher the truth slowly. Truth 
is profound and they arrive at the text through their 
need. Education, wages, pauperism, punishment, pro¬ 
duction, consumption, distribution, exchange, money, 
credit, rights of capital, rights of labor,—all these ques¬ 
tions are understood by the multitude when it falls to 
their lot to be hard pushed, when progress is retarded, 
when the country is disturbed. The thinkers always 
meditate, turning over these questions quietly and when 
through mismanagement there is the least agitation are 
ready to say to the people : “Here is the means of pros¬ 
perity.” But a Nation to be great, citizens to be free, 
nmst be thinkers all the time, public power depends on 
private skill. 

27 

You do not furnish a Nation by killing wealth. At 
the same time, government is supposed to restrain the 
powerful from preying upon the weak, and a republic 
comes nearest this purpose. Consult the people. We 
do not want resignation, but activity; not speculation, 
but instruction. Let us keep watch over the moral 
grandeur of citizenship as well as our material success 
and intellectual growth. Let our Nation be a happy 
family. 

28 

Bishop John H. Vincient says: “Force her down in¬ 
to the same bad atmosphere ! etc.” (Meaning the poli¬ 
tics and the voting precincts.) Is voting so low, is vot- 


ing a shame instead of a glory? If this be so, then it is 
high time women step in and elevate the moral atmos¬ 
phere of the ballot! If it is a shame and a disgrace to 
vote, then let ns go back to Monarchy! 

Wherever a good woman goes, there you find the 
purest atmosphere, and rather than forcing her down to 
a bad atmosphere, will you find a steady uplifting of 
hope and aspiration ! 

29 

There are women who do not desire to vote because 
they have no realization of living other than personal and 
social vanities; and there are other women who have 
read so much regarding the losing of their femininity, 
and the respect of men, that they are afraid of desiring 
anything that will so harm them. 

Whose fault is it, after years of depression and ig¬ 
norance, you find women today frivolous and vain,—if 
today the individual woman does not grasp the meaning 
of liberty and apply it to herself. Who, I say, is to 
blame for this ? 

The past has been an uneven struggle between the 
animal nature and the demands of the soul,—now that 
the voice of the spirit grows stronger, women will stand 
out in great glory and sublimity. 

30 

It took one hundred years of travail for the earth to 
bring forth Martin Luther to unchain the Bible. It took 
one hundred years to produce George Washington to lead 
a great people out of bondage, and it has taken one hun¬ 
dred years longer to raise up Elizabeth Cady Stauton to 
break the handcuffs of ignorance and subjection from the 
white hands of our women. This does not begin to tell 
of the heroes who fought and suffered martyrdom for 
these causes. 


10 


31 

The keystone in the archway of woman’s success is 
raised by a few, loving, loyal hearts to the triumphal en¬ 
trance of the great mass of wailing souls, anxiously 
waiting for the call “Foward, ye are free !” 

82 

What is there to “unsex” a woman in going, in her 
own town, to her own district, where she is aquainted 
and honored, and quietly and gladly placing her ballot 
for a cause she has studied and believes is right? 

83 

Is woman too weak to stand alone, yet strougenough 
for man to lean on—he with the weight of the govern¬ 
ment on his shoulders? Can she sympathize without 
comprehension ? 

34 

Because woman loves the beautiful, she must be ov¬ 
ercharged for “ease and whiteness and pleasure chiefly !” 
Then learn this: I would rather lake my part where 
there is so much work to be done, “in this beleaguered 
earth,” to choose to “walk” at all risks than keep quiet 
here. And, “Here, if heads that hold a rhythmic 
thought, must ache perforce. For my part, I choose 
headaches.” But “I perceive! The headache is too 
noble for my sex. You think the heartache would sound 
decenter. Since that’s the woman’s special, proper ache. 
And altogether tolerable, except to a woman.” Life 
means, head and heart, both complete together and ac¬ 
tive and in earnest! Men and women make human life. 

35 

It takes a soul to move the body and it takes ahigh- 
souled man or woman to move the masses, nor has 
man always been the successful one. If we, being wom¬ 
en, aspire and create, and our work be false or uncom- 


ii 


prehended, then burn the false work, forget the false 
deed, we will not ask for grace. 

36 

I hear with distress and anguish women pleading,— 
women begging legislative assemblies to hearken to the 
voice of reason and equity, women pleading in every 
community. Such humiliation, when it falls especially 
from the lips of those who are patriotic and known to 
the country and known all over the world for their serv¬ 
ices, shows a pressure of circumstances that will end in 
dissolution or victory. Peace! Peace! The twofold 
character of knowledge and submission is an utter im- 
possility. 

37 

It is argued that women are too emotional to be a fac¬ 
tor in the body politic, that they are incapable of weigh¬ 
ing and judging, (this over-emotion appeals to their 
pride, passion, and prejudice) to have capacity for 
public business; men do not believe in the existence of 
disinterestedness, impartiality, and consequent honesty, 
for them to have any part in public affairs. 

Let us see what this dominating weakness is; let ns 
also find what influence personal qualifications have up¬ 
on public affairs: 

First: It is an acknowledged fact beyond the neces¬ 
sity of proof, that women as a class have long stood 
squarely and openly for the elevation of mankind, whose 
influence has always been powerful for good. There is 
little doubt what this check would be upon arbitrary 
power and upon the rashest partisan policy. Therefore, 
women may be deemed “safe” which is the essence of all 
trust that ripens the belief in truthfulness as well as in 
capacity. Openness, loyalty and honesty are the levers 
to raise the respect and trust and admiration of the 


12 



people. These are the surest grounds of justification 
and excellence. 

Who will deny to any individual (if he be wise and 
tactful, if his intelligence and education rates high, 
it his personal command be great) the leadership over 
his less talented associates? Could the world get along 
without its Caesar, its Cromwell, its Washington, yea, its 
Zenobia, its Elizabeth, or its Queen Victoria? 

38 

But, you say, the capacity for making laws is neces¬ 
sary, when women are permitted to perform the func¬ 
tions of legislation. True, and we often find the woman 
the guiding genius of the family, educating the children, 
managing the property, originating, deciding! Men’s 
pursuits are as foreign from political duties as those of 
women. Is there anything more incompatible with politi¬ 
cal functions in cooking or washing dishes than there is 
in digging ditches or building houses? 

39 

The foundation principles of the woman suffrage 
movement are: the recognition of individual rights and 
responsibilites, and that the duties of the individual 
must comprehend the family, the parish, and the great 
interests of the public. Whatsoever secures peace and 
purity in the home will secure the same conditions in 
the government. 

40 

All through the growth of colonial days we find our 
women displaying the same sturdy characteristics as 
husband and brother. A maiden of Main held a door 
while thirteen women and children escaped to the block¬ 
house before the savages chopped it down together with 
its brave defender. Hannah Dustin with another wom¬ 
an, and a boy, killed ten indians, and then returned and 


13 


scalped tlieir victims lest their story might not be believed. 

Our school histories have a studied omittance of the 
deeds of women. Should not our boys learn something 
of women to admire, rather than to grow up ignorant of 
the fact that women have done a great deal in shaping 
U nited States History, and the feeling that very little 
satisfies women ? 

While we have nurses without number who during 
the Civil war cared for the sick and dying, these nurses 
were often engaged in action, and so, also, we have wom¬ 
en who were regularly on the field: Mrs. Gen. Barlow— 
Miss Cushman as a spy—Anna Etheridge amid the shot 
and shell—“Emily” the unknown—oh ! the heroism and 
self-sacrifice of our women should have a place in 
history ! 

41 

Would woman like to earn a wage? Opportunities 
were barred in cruel mockery lest she push a stronger 
out of employment, until through suffering and cruel ov¬ 
erwork, she has proved her capacity to hold her own, 
even amidst all the hindrances which Prejudice could 
maliciously throw in her way. 

42 

Woman has won gloriously, and through worth. If 
she had not had brains and energy and perseverence, we 
would find her just where she was before she entered 
school-life. 

Leo Miller, in his “Woman and the Divine Repub¬ 
lic” says: “Men alone clamored for Jesus ’ life. Men 
heartlessly deserted him in the hour of his trial. Of his 
chosen friends and disciples, the men, in a cowardly 
manner, ran away and left him in the hands of his de¬ 
stroyers. Woman followed him, shedding tears of sym¬ 
pathy and pity. Woman alone pressed her way through 


14 


that murderous crowd to tbe very foot of the cross, and 
there poured out her prayers and tears in behalf of the 
world’s dying martyr. Woman embalmed his precious 
body. Woman first greeted him when he burst the bonds 
of death, and triumphed over the grave. Woman was 
first commissioned to go and proclaim the glad tidings 
of his resurrection. And woman today stands first and 
foremost in her Master’s work.” 

Leo Miller goes on to picture the future of the world 
when Christian women of coming centuries shall do 
fully the work God has given woman to do: “I am ful¬ 
ly persuaded, that, emancipated, enlightened and en¬ 
franchised, she will be equal to the demand. The whole 
world will surrender to her divine command. Prison 
houses will be transformed into schools, inebriates will 
shake off the demon spell that enslaves them, and stand 
erect in their manhood. Oppression’s yoke will be 
broken; navies will be turned into ships of commerce, 
and the implements of death be beaten into the imple¬ 
ments of life.” 

43 

The question is sneeringly asked sometimes : Can 
a woman invent? 

Many of woman’s inventions have been patented 
under men’s names. The largest foundry in the city of 
Troy is run to manufacture horseshoes, one of which is 
turned out every three seconds. The machine which 
does this work was invented by a woman; but the 
manufacture is carried on under a man’s name, and will 
he exhibited as man’s work. 

A New Jersey woman invented the attachment to the 
mowing machine, whereby the knives are thrown out of 
gear whenever the driver leaves his seat, thus lessening 
the liability to accident. The self-fastening button is a 


15 


woman’s invention. 

Women have ever helped to provide means for what 
they could not share ! “When every wrong thing’s right¬ 
ed” then will women receive the reward they have so 
long deserved. 

44 

Ah, how we women would appreciate “the sacred 
power in our right hand how we would study to know 
how to use it; how we would pray to do right with it. 
And would we ever grow cold and indifferent? Not while 
there is love in a woman’s heart, not while we lead the 
young. 

When the mother can appreciate the glow of liberty 
as she bends over the cradle, when the teacher can take 
the Constitution of this Republic, and with lips trem¬ 
bling with patriotism, eyes shining with the love of lib¬ 
erty, and with a live interest she has not today, teach it 
to her pupils, then and not till then, will the younggrow T 
up to honor a country like ours. Surely the elevation of 
woman is the growth of the whole state, and whatever 
stress a Nation lays upon the advancement or degrada¬ 
tion of its women, that stress is the plain proof of the 
Nation’s uplift, or its pathetic life, its continuity or its 
downfall. When universal peace and charity alone can 
characterize the lofty ideals of liberty and equality, jus¬ 
tice and purity, then there will be no pathetic plea for 
its women. If this Nation desires to lift itself above the 
inequalities and injustices of many of its institutions, 
let it take heed in time, to free its women. 

45 

Nature’s sundial is slowdy shifting toward the hour 
of woman’s might, weighted with eternal justice, the 
sands point to the high noon of progress when woman 
shall occupy the place that God designed she should. 


16 




46 

Where women have exercised the highest powers in 
all ages of the world—from Zenobia to Victoria—and 
where statescraft and military capacity have been exer¬ 
cised, we find the highest graces and marked virtues of 
motherhood. 

47 

A woman designed the American flag. A woman 
planned the most important campaign of the Civil War. 

Woman : the processes of Nature for the uplifting 
of the world are infinite and painstaking. For long ages 
God’s agencies have tugged and toiled from chaos to 
perfection for the occupation of the human race. 

So through thorns, oppositions, trials and aches 
men have passed heroically into the better things of life. 
Difficulties are stepping stones rather than stumbling 
rocks, and thwarted plans are seeds which with the right 
soil will become rich fruits of character. 

The elements and conditions for womanhood have 
been coarseness and drudgery and exhaustion, but be¬ 
cause the balancings and adjustments have been longest 
and bitterest, the stirrings of genius will work with spirit- 
endowed power, until no unanswered prayer will spring 
from a yearning heart. 

FAULTS. 

There are several faults that women must defeat to 
obtain sound wisdom. These faults are men’s faults al¬ 
so, but I am writing to women. 

I think the chiefest fault is much speaking. Wom¬ 
en talk too much. 

Vocal education is a proper thing, but women are 
apt to prattle in a flighty sort of way, that clogs up the 
avenues of thought that leads to irreverences, always 
perilous. 


17 


Hearts that discern and feel are the silent ones. 

These alone know and honor those grander and no¬ 
bler than themselves; with the height of reverence for 
that above; with the depth of reverence for pain and dis¬ 
tresses, for sorrows and contradictions. Let us learn 
the wisdom of silence. Nature is sweet and clear when 
the mind is healthy. 

I asked a talented lady once to help us in an en¬ 
tertainment (benefit) but she declined. I then inquired 
why she was putting so much time in practice. “For 
my home,” she said. 

That is quite poetical but what would you think of 
two angels saying to each other: “We will just play 
and sing for each other for we do not love any one else 
in Heaven.” 

And if it were selfishness for angels in Heaven 
where all is loveliness, how about mortals on earth where 
want and misery, poverty and debt, are the commonest 
lot ? 

Surely the Great Master taught a different lesson. 
And yet this is not an uncommon sentiment among 
women, and husbands encourage the sentiment. 

INNOVATION. 

Woman has been a varying integer in the Universe. 
Like the mercury in the thermometer she has dropped 
below zero or risen above normal through the influence 
of the normal atmosphere of men. 

We have but one reason for this condition of man¬ 
kind; namely, the superior physical strength of men.. 
Until Christianity came to pervade human life we have 
had might, not right, to rule the world. 

The History of the Past, when woman was at the 
zero point, is made up of war and conquests. As long 


18 






as the mercury of civilization bung aroOnd the zero 
point, History has very little to record but monstroei- 
ties. While man shaped instruments of blood, an 1 idled 
his time in watching for foes who seldom came, woman 
bent in woe over the toils that fruited the earth with the 
idle man’s nourishment and comfort. But this state of 
affairs could not last always, Nature’s divine processes 
succumb the worst in life, however formidable appears 
the abortion, however long rules abnormal conditions. 

Perfect Government has never existed and never 
will. That does not lessen humanity’s duty; rather, 
it heightens mankind’s obligations. Government would 
be unnecessary if perfection was the common attribute 
of man. If Mercy sat enthroned in men’s hearts, as it 
is the attribute of God, then justice in the lives of men 
would leave no room for restricting the life of one man 
to give to another person the privilege of life, or the 
privilege of ownership. Christ’s life is the only example 
we have of perfection, the only person whose life was 
lived as a brother’s keeper. Hence, the mercury of hu¬ 
man progress is ever abnormal, rising and falling, never 
resting at normal. After a period of depression, comes 
a rise in temperature affecting mankind with pride, ava- 
race, licentiousness, “high-living.” 

It is the work of the thinkers to strive to keep soci¬ 
ety as near normal as possible. 

There are but few instances in the History of man¬ 
kind where other than man government has existed, but 
these few brief periods are telling instances where the 
love of humanity has sat upon the brow of a monarch in 
happy regence swaying the lives of subjects as never 
Tyranny with all the regality of power has ever affected. 

If, the need of government decreases in the ratio 
that the attainment of perfection evolves the human 


19 


races, when the affections and desires of self exist in 
the minimum, then will the human family be nurtured 
by mother spirit, rather than governed by man domi¬ 
nance. Blessed is the human who devotes his talents 
and his virtues, his capacity and his noble heart to this 
end. In that day the unfortunate and the weak will be 
held in repute if the face is honest. Take away from 
man the ineffable air which says “Behold embodied in 
me is the majesty of power,” and there remains an 
agreeable person. For that quality of mind and man¬ 
ner which fits men and women for society, man must 
yield to woman. 

There are two enemies to the human race which are 
commonly observable to the less prejudicial, which un¬ 
aided, but let to grow, would destroy whole nations; 
namely,—forgetting one science,—(which is incompara¬ 
bly above all the rest) the knowledge of God, and the 
happiness of mankind,—and the allowing partiality to 
mislead the understanding. Truth is always the same; 
time has never altered it, nor made it better or worse, 
but its knowledge and practice has put eminent differ¬ 
ences in the histories of nations. Strife, faction, malig¬ 
nity, are foreign to woman’s nature, and while it is 
every man’s duty to know God, the honor and venera¬ 
tion of the Creator has been everywhere studied by wom¬ 
en more than by men. 

Partiality coops up the intellect within narrow 
bounds, and hinders it from looking abroad. Mere smat¬ 
tering has a contempt for all other knowledge and so 
harnesses most men that they become comparatively of 
little importance or use to the world in general. Par¬ 
tiality distorted for years into inflexible and unalterable 
relations the sphere of womanhood and whole nations 
suffered. Because the received notions of partiality have 


20 


so set into human life few but conclude that this com¬ 
mon opinion cannot but be true, the veneration of antiq¬ 
uity so lords it over the simple. The predominancy of 
custom is visible everywhere so that we cease to wonder 
when we hear men profess, protest, and then do just as 
they have done before, as if they were machines, moved 
only by the force of custom. Continual amendment is 
exceeding rare, few minds keep themselves open to con¬ 
tinual amendment. 

Feminine advancement has until recent years ap¬ 
peared ill-shapen and perverted, like all innovations, 
and its success will be strongest in continuance. While 
innovators are prepared to attack the confederate of set¬ 
tled custom and foes to advancement, yet are theytroub 
led by the inconformity of the more independent and 
thoughtful. 

If they the human race as individuals have too 
much reverence for old times, and are slow to advance, 
one can comprehend the work to innovate the State, nor 
can this he done unless the utility is evident, and the 
necessity urgent. 

We wish to emphasize at this point the inevitable¬ 
ness of this reformation of woman in society. 

When the overburdened home turned out its once 
economic forces into the industrial world, old habits of 
life relaxed, and social revolution commenced. Thought 
broadenedinto study, new social standards sprungupun¬ 
aware, and the mother, once the servant of all, is now fit¬ 
ting herself for an independent individual existence. The 
great motherliness of soul developed in woman is as sure¬ 
ly the gift of Nature as her devotion to her offspring. 
Through all Evolution Nature is ever in evidence and in 
the elevation of woman this force is the most potent. If 
woman, therefore, through natural conditions, is becom- 


21 


mg the soul of polities, and is working into the condi¬ 
tions that make up national character, what combined 
forces can hinder? The force of circumstances has 
crowded woman to the front, and the solution to the 
world’s need lies in woman’s brain and heart, here is the 
remedy for the twentieth century. 

When the innovation of woman’s sphere of action 
is at last established, she will certainly obtain a power 
that individuals in the aggregate have never had. When 
political economy speaks to her in the plainest language, 
we will have the mother-teacher fulfilling her function 
by making her children her political desciples. When 
the mother becomes a unitin government, then pnliiicnl 
opinions, and governmental principles will be born in 
the home, not in saloons, shops, and on street corners, 
and the spirit of the whole system will be purer and 
holier. 

MOTHER AND CHILD. 

There has been effort in the world toward the lim¬ 
itation of Motherhood. The chief protest against wom¬ 
an’s advancement has come from the fear of disruption 
of the home, which would mean ultimately the loss of 
love, the devotion of motherhood, the homeless father, 
the degeneracy of children, the wreckage of society. 

Consider with me, then, the relation of mother and 
child. After children reach the age of six, they are sent 
to school. They leave the mother at half past eight in 
the morning and remain, except with the intermission 
of noon, until after four, before they come home. Then 
comes the children’s play time, for they have been at 
work all day. If the weather is fine they are out doors 
for they have been housed all day. 

For nine months of the year children are away from 
the mother learning self-estrangement. Shall the motli- 


22 



er remain idle all the day to be in readiness to greet the 
home-coming children, or shall the time he passed in 
some worthy labor? 

It is not necessary to discuss the questions of home- 
dress-making ys. ready-made garments, for we all know 
how much of household drudgery has been taken out 
of the mother’s life. 

Any average woman of today can find spare time, 
even if she does do her housework, or the most of it. 

If then, the mother is home to dress the children for 
school, to greet them at noon, to watch over them after 
school, and give them the early part of the evening, an¬ 
swering childish questions, loving and soothing, and 
finally tucking the little ones snugly away for dreamland 
journeys, can she not find much of the day for advance¬ 
ment ? 

Many women of moderate means are teaching mu¬ 
sic, art, elocution, embroidery, to enable them to hire 
the domestic work done, and this is certainly admirable 
if they cannot pursue their natural bent otherwise. 

If a woman raises a family it is usually between 20 
and 30 years of age, and beyond that is the age of per¬ 
fection, when human power reaches its ultimatum, and 
women who have learned application and know the ap¬ 
preciation of higher education, have more time for de¬ 
velopment than the business men of today. 

The evening from eight o’clock belongs to the 
father and mother, for children should be lost in 
slumber before that time, and any mother who allows a 
child out of its bed after that hour, is laying a poor 
foundation for true developed strength. Let the parents 
spend it as they like, at home or abroad, it is certainly 
a well-earned leisure. 

Any mother who allows a child to tryannize over 


23 


her, giving over-dae attention or exertion, is doing a 
great injury to the State; she is making a bad citizen. 

Mothers have much to learn, but they are learning. 
They are reaching out to nobler womanhood, when they 
can stand in regal strength of brain and physique, side 
by side, with true manhood, without a question of abil¬ 
ity or right. 

Then, and not till then, will social equilibrium force 
agitation and discontent to the wall, and unconquerable 
desires and vexations own defeat. 

This is certainly the most momentous question ever 
given the human family to decide, and because in does 
not come with wild trumpet sound, or the hideousness 
of war, or the horrors and distresses of revolution, men 
are apt to look upon it with contempt, and treat it with 
slight. 

It has already grown beyond the power of resist¬ 
ance, and is establishing itself with calm assurance, un¬ 
til Americanism means so formidable a weapon of so¬ 
ciety, that patriotism, loyalty, pacification and arbitra¬ 
tion are easily read on the face of it, by Orientalism. 

Women have ever raised men to the highest deeds 
they are capable of, and have been content that it should 
be so, until the best thing God has put in the hands 
of men, is being wrested from them through greed. 
I mean the political questions of the day. And 
that men lose not faith in each other, and that tender 
fellow-feeling, in the rush for wealth, in this country, 
woman, through the kindness of evolution, has .been re¬ 
leased of the arduous duties of the past, to become a 
factor in the political life of the world. The thinkers of 
the day know this to be true. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELATIONSHIP- 

I The province of morality. 


24 





II The province of citizenship. 

'Phe phases most worthy of our attention are in the 
provinces of morality and citizenship. 

While individuality must penetrate the whole exposi¬ 
tion of the child, while he must he self-identical and self- 
distinct ns to mind and consciousness, the mother must 
make clear to him in the concrete the gaps that certainly 
appear by the changefulness of ever-varying needs. To 
do this the mother must arrive at the highest ability o r 
expansion, and if the mother is in bondage in any one 
procedure there is no sure specific by which she can ar¬ 
rive at method ; she must be free to the widest experi¬ 
ence, or conceal superficiality by effrontery which the 
child will soon learn, when her power and influence will 
be lost. 

While there are different grades of culture, all must 
learn the character of contingency in the ways of life, 
manners and customs. The power exercised by the im¬ 
mediate world of cliildlife never loses the force gained, 
and while we are indebted to life itself for the best les¬ 
sons, there must be the beginning to the end in citizen¬ 
ship as well as in ethical knowledge. 

If the mother by acting as a citizen, by obeying the 
laws, assisting at the ballot-box,—a peculiar form of 
education which can not be obtained through any other 
form however reinforced—learns through living, she has 
an experience of action of the love of the state which will 
be a resistless might in the education of her off-spring. 

Do not think that I am yet a mother that I write 
thus. A full heart never speaks. I would be lost in the 
rapturous love of loving. That is why the world has 
lost its Mary Anderson. It was the lack of a home that 
gave the world, “Home Sweet Home.” 


25 


LIBERTY A GROWTH. 

It has been argued that if women had desired the 
privilege of the ballot they would have demanded its use 
long ago. 

We wish to demonstrate the falsity of this assertion. 

Civilized man having previously been the natural 
breadwinner has obtained his education through the four 
institutions of civilization,—family, school, state and 
church. 

The education man has got by earning his living, 
and by acting as a citizen, could never be obtained by the 
school, or in the family but is peculiar to life itself. 
After preparation for life through the family and school, 
more can be gained by immediate contact with the 
world, through experience than any other gain whatever 
that can happen in our lives. 

One may spend a life-time learning of the recorded 
wisdom of the entire human race, also aquainting him¬ 
self with the evil and follies of mankind, and what has 
come in bad repute, and yet obtain so little of the mean- 
ngs and relationship of life as to carry little devotion or 
sympathy into actual living. 

Then, consider if you will, that the school also has 
been closed to woman, atrociously ignorant of the first 
elements of practical life, and worse, trained in a stiff 
and affected “good-old-fashioned” manner. 

Interpret such a life, passive and purposeless, and 
the powerfulest means for arousing and interesting and 
developing, would be entirely inadequate to arouse sym¬ 
pathy or appreciation in life itself. 

Physiological authorities teach us that the nerve 
elements in youth are incomplete and poorly establish¬ 
ed, that the history of the growth of the nervous system 
increases in complexity to do at maturity what previous- 


26 


ly it could not do at all. 

If intellectual growth, therefore, can be modified and 
increased in complexity by the experience of the indivi¬ 
dual the importance of education and the development 
of a more extended, amplified, external life is apparent. 

Then consider the results of hereditary influence. 
Self-estrangement has lain latent for generations in the 
female line of descendency. Hampered then by heredi¬ 
tary predispositions, with little or no intellectual nature, 
it is possible to conceive of the formal conclusions which 
such restraining influences would compel. 

Lacking the courage to meet England, Persecutor, 
the Pilgrims landed on the bleak shore of New England 
to live in quietness a life antagonistic to the mother 
country. Intolerant of views in any way antagonistic 
to their own, the colonists in turn persecuted. 

Gibbets, racks, axes, fires, and whips, in turn decend- 
ed on their victims who also believed in the inviolability 
of conscience. 

It was a question with our early fathers if laboring 
men should have so great a privilege as the ballot. Un¬ 
derstand, that old ideas and customs of landed estate, 
of privilege of the wealthy, servitude of the poor, were 
brought over to this shore. Innovation of any sort is 
almost bewilderment to the race. Franchise, at first, was 
allowed only to church members, and church members 
were admitted only on satisfactory proof of the ortho¬ 
doxy of their views and lives. Caste was strong, servant 
and milady were quite distinguishable as to dress, both 
in quality and mode. But though the Puritans were 
harsh and bigoted, fanatical to cruelty, they were firm 
to the one idea to keep pure those doctrines on which 
rested the whole foundation of the State. 

Feeling its way blindly, humanity arrived somewhat 


27 


at the truth. Liberty to seek the truth is one of the 
most precious of human rights, and the People are wiser 
than any one man or woman, and though ignorance 
or timidity may thwart for a lime, in the end, real ad¬ 
vancement grows out of well-meant endeavor. The Peo¬ 
ple discern the Truth slowly, but Civilization has no re¬ 
trograde, and the future fortune of Americanism, its real 
progress and prosperity is, to a large extent, independ¬ 
ent of political discussion. 

The growth of womanhood is not separate or differ¬ 
ent from any human advancement. It has its founda¬ 
tion in the early struggles of this Nation, and only be¬ 
cause of greater Prejudices and Hindrances, has its de¬ 
velopment been more retarded, and its results least 
manifest. 

This contest for universal suffrage meets the same 
comments in opposition as those made against every 
progressive step taken by women. The same doleful 
forebodings of calamity to happen woman battled with 
when it was proposed to allow her to hold property; to 
enter occupations; to control her own wages; to speak 
in public; yea, to become educated ! 

When we compare American womanhood with 
Turkish slavery, or German servility, we find where 
woman, as man, is freest, there is the culmination of 
true womanhood and true manhood, and the foundation 
of all other rights, is the ballot. 

SEEMING INDIFFERENCE OF "WOMEN- 

About the only remaining instrument of war that 
our opponents have to use, today, is the battering ram, 
Indifference of Women. 

We are at the Richmond of the Civil Strife between 
brother and sister, and their forces are naturally con¬ 
centrated upon their only objective point. 


Let us plan the final action : Bring me the veteran 
officers who have faced the enemy fifty years, an almost 
conquered foe. Small strife to these women who have 
faced the brickbats of the enemy in its younger, fiercer 
days ! Even the enemy give a convulsive shudder and 
an admiring thrill as the Invincibles, moving in compact 
column, are officered up. 

Stanton, Anthony, Mott, Howe, Gardener,—a cheer 
breaks from the ranks ! The Invincibles carry the ban¬ 
ners of those fallen of their number. As they float be¬ 
fore the eye-of memory, the cowardice of an enemy who 
could stoop to inflict wounds by the use of the barbarous 
weapons of Satire, Ridicule, Misrepresentation; who 
would even lower the rebel yell into hisses, hoots, with 
the free use of spit-balls, sulphur matches, pepper, who 
could deluge honorable women,—because they dared 
stand up and speak the truth,—with ice water, would in 
the end work its own destruction. 

Let these brave officers call upon their brave ranks, 
an innumerable host. Here they come, carrying en¬ 
tirely new weapons of warfare : “armed to the teeth” 
with the weapons of virtue, knowledged, self-command, 
temperance, prayer, unity. 

Add to this number women at home sending out the 
provisions and lint in the form of hard-earned - money, 
social purity, and education of the less brave and the 
less-moved forces. 

Add to this force the timid numbers who will rejoice 
with the victorious but who cannot bear the brunt of 
battle, the scoff of public criticism, who cannot bear the 
relentless and hard usuage of unsympathizers, but whose 
prayers shall be answered ! Timidity is not indifference 
and must bear its own suffering. 

Add to the ranks our brave brothers, who openly 


29 


espouse the cause; men who bring their talents, their 
nobility of nature, their experience of the world, to this 
great Army for Freedom, and withal, the Man-of-War, 
Justice, the sloop-of-war, Truth, the double-banked frig¬ 
ate, Liberty, and the enemy’s last battering ram, launch¬ 
ed with a foe who can scarce “march fow 7 ard, and quit 
himself like a man” when Truth lias no part in his 
“appointment,”—and who doubts the result when the 
heart of the enemy is weak ? 

Should the attack be planned with the aid of all the 
wickedness in the world, the foe cannot help respecting 
an antagonist who commands such mighty machinery 
as we can put into action against untruth and injustice. 

THE PPwOPEHSr. 

The annihilation of self-hood itself as the ideal of 
womanhood and motherhood is the chief element that 
has caused woman’s limitation. This has ever been ac¬ 
credited to her as the highest attainment of unselfish 
ness. This characterization that woman must necessarily 
limit herself has until now dominated the entire race 
and yet prevails among the common people. 

And now, because woman has thrown off this yoke, 
and has surprised man with her ability to cope with the 
strongest and most obstinate hindrances, and come out 
victorious-over ignorance and prejudices, but in fifty 
years of advancement has not yet developed a genius in 
her midst, man sets it down as conclusive evidence that 
he still holds superiority as a human being. 

He forgets the centuries that have elapsed between 
the production of the handful of men who have reached 
the pinnacle of human achievement. lie forgets that 
circumstances conducive to the accomplishment of great 
work have always been at man’s disposal, and that 
woman has never been so placed. Men have been 


30 


spurred on to brilliant achievement by every relation of 
life, while girls have ever been condemned and thwarted. 
Forgetting these conditions men exultingly proclaim 
that Genius allows no obstacles, that it ever rises above 
all disadvantages, and consequently woman has not, 
nor never will have genius. At the same time they ac¬ 
cept the demonstration that the world’s intellectual gi¬ 
ants have somehow belonged to the most favorable peri¬ 
ods of History. Such is the inconsistency of many of 
man’s doctrines. 

Colonel Higginson says: “Systematically discour¬ 
age any individual, from birth to death, and they learn, 
in nine cases out of ten, to acquiesce in their degrada¬ 
tion, if not to claim it as a crown of glory.” While it is 
a common demonstration in our schools every day that 
girls have the like capacity for the higher mathematics 
and for literature as boys, still it is the general run of 
belief that such instances are abnormal. 

If we count but one Dante, one Shakespeare, one 
Beethoven, one Michel Angelo, one Newton, one Dar¬ 
win, and one Gauss, in the roll of 2,000 years, among 
men who have had every circumstance and every stim¬ 
ulating opportunity to reach the highest rank, should 
not man’s patience bear with the progress of woman one 
thousand years? 

What intellectual hero has America produced in 
two hundred years of unprecedented freedom ? Let not 
Americans be too hasty, their intellectual hero may be a 
woman ! 

Methinks I already hear the applause of her whom 
America is destined to evolve. Not from the East will 
she come; she would not be fostered there with the ten- 
derest watchfulness and care,—the East is not prepared 
for her; nor are the Middle States, destined,—for the 


31 


many nameless forces which animate and impel the de¬ 
velopment of her genius are not there, but in or near the 
cradle of her liberty will she be nurtured into immortal 
fame. Wyoming, look to your daughters! Mother 
State,— thou art twenty-five years in advance of the 
whole world in the rearing of daughters. Where else 
could she be reared so well ? 


POSTSCRIPTS. 

P. S. Mr. Bok’s Editorials remind me of a clumsy 
giant sitting, half dozing, with countless little pygmies 
playing around his knees. 

He picks up a half dozen of them and puts them out 
on the palm of his hand, and says in his most becoming 
voice: “Now, little dears, you must not try to be as big 
as me. You cannot. You would wear your little bodies 
out trying. You do well enough on a few things, how¬ 
ever. You can sew and knit, and take care of the little 
pygmies.” 

“But,” one of them ventures to squeak, “we don’t 
have to make our clothes ; they are made for us.” 

“But you must mend,” suggests Mr. Giant. 

“And I can sing,” squeaks the one farthest away, 
out on the big finger. 

“That is all right; you may sing for me or some one 
Brownie if he should come,” remonstrates Monsieur. 

“But I want to sing for all the Pygmies and 
Brownies,”— 

“That would be most out of place and unbecom¬ 
ing,” croaked the displeased Giant, “you must not think 
of it. All the little pygmies might die if you did. 
There now, be good little dears and mind what I say !” 
as he puts them down again for a time. 


32 



P. S. I awoke the other night laughing, with a vis¬ 
ion of that Temperance Convention before my sleepy 
brain ! 

There stood Antoinette Brown on the platform—the 
first woman ordained by the Congregational Church, 
trying to address that gathering of ministers. 

There those good ministers sat as that noble wom¬ 
an stood before them, with their church-yard faces and 
reverend coat-tails, hissing and catcalling for three 
hours, while up in the gallery sat Monsieur Devil, bend- 
jng double with excitement and pleasure, twitching 
his red coat-tail, pulling down his flaming vest, and 
grasping his right horn to keep down his risibles. 

Poor Monsieur, he always has to take advantage of 
a laugh, for how could he tell that an army of strong, 
noble women would arise from that event and forever af¬ 
terward make headway against the shortcomings of the 
world ? 

P. S. Here is a bit of man’s logic : 

Sir Wm. Turner, President of the Anthropological 
Section of the British Service Assn, says : “We have 
abundant evidence of the weight of the brain in Europe¬ 
ans, in whom several thousand brains have been tested. 
In the men the average brain-weight is from 49 to 50 oz. 
In the women, from 44 to 45 oz. The difference in 
weight is, doubtless, in part correlated with differences 
in the mass, weight, and stature of the body in the two 

sexes, ALTHOUGH IT SEEMS QUESTIONABLE IF THE ENTIRE 

difference is capable of this explanation. It is inter¬ 
esting to note that even in new-born children the boys 
have bigger heads and heavier brains than the girls. 
A distinction in the brain-weight of the two sexes is ob¬ 
viously established, therefore, before the child is born, 
and is not to be accounted for by the training and edu- 


33 


cational advantages enjoyed by the male sex being su¬ 
perior to those of the female sex.” 

Here is the discrepancy : that while the brain ca¬ 
pacity of the male is necessarily larger on account of 
physical difference, than the female, yet there must be 
in some way a greater difference, but not accountable 
because of questions of superior mental culture, while 
later on he says in regard to savage tribes : “that though 
the capacity of the men’s skulls is greater than that of 
the women’s, there is not quite the same amount of dif¬ 
ference between the sexes in a savage as in a civilized 
race.” 

What logic is shown forth here. Civilized man has 
a larger brain than civilized woman, not only because of 
greater physical structure, but there must be some oth¬ 
er reason for the difference. (The unspoken reason of 
being greater than woman.) 

Yet in the savage, where neither male nor female, 
has any culture, the difference in mental capacity is less, 
although the same difference in physical structure ex¬ 
ists. 

Eve certainly gave us something harder to do than 
pulling weeds when she held the apple of knowledge for 
Adam to take a bite. That bite of that apple ! A little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing; why did she not give 
Adam two bites ? Surely he would have had less conceit! 

P. S. A mother’s influence over her son is the 
greatest influence. This is true for two reasons: first 
because it is natural—one sex has a greater influence 
over the opposite than upon its own sex. And second : 
because men have been so occupied in telling women 
what their duties in the family are, that fatherhood has 
not had time to develop except in special cases. 

A mother has more influence over her son than her 


34 


daughter. If the mother be frivolous and gossipy, the 
son will surely place the standard of womanhood very 
low. As in the case of the Pessimist Schopenhauer. 

There are two influences, however, to which women 
must yet awaken, to he as far reaching as they should. 

The first of these two influences, which scarcely ex¬ 
ist today, is an influence which motherhood should ex¬ 
ert when the boy is beginning to develop into manhood. 
But no, mothers cannot explain those secrets of Nature 
to son or daughter. They will let the children learn 
these relations of nature from profane lips. 

I heard a mother the other day say that she was 
afraid her son would come across “Quo Vadis” and she 
did not want him to read it. A friend remarked that the 
son would probably “ask questions of things he did not 
understand in the book.” “Oh, no,” exclaimed the 
mother, “G— never talks with me as he used to.” 

My heart ached for that boy and for that mother. 
Her fourteen year old boy -could not come to her to open 
up the mysteries of life—but he could learn from lips 
not so pure and true as his mother’s, whatever construc¬ 
tion of life vile lips might put upon it. There is the 
step where mothers lose. 

Another influence is the political influence which 
mothers should learn to exert. True citizenship can be 
fostered in no other way—and yet, today, hoys have a 
contempt for a woman’s opinion of affairs of State. 
What a pity ! And many women glory in this ignorance, 
flattering themselves that this very ignorance is the safe 
guard of the home, of society and of State. And that 
men will love her more because she is ignorant of the 
great questions of the day ! What folly, what a ridicu¬ 
lous logic. 

P. S. And now, friends, I submit this little book 


35 


to you, but felt its incompleteness without the Post¬ 
scripts. I do not want any man to take the honor of 
this little book, and I know they can’t if I add the post¬ 
scripts. I have written it all myself. 



36 





Evolution has entered into the consideration of 
every form of animal life except in woman. Woman 
having always been classed as an adjunct to man, and 
of no use to the world except the continuance of the 
race, has not been essential in the consideration of so 
momentous a question. Man has written volumes on 
man—and now let woman be heard by her own lips. 


38 




UNIOLOGY. 


Uniology, or the science of individualism, is the 
last born of all sciences. The worst bane to any science 
is prejudice, and the first rule is to be as unprejudiced 
as mathematicians have to be, and Honesty is the help¬ 
meet of science. But it must not be forgot that while 
all objects in a special line must be labelled with care to 
be used or rejected when its relationship becomes cogni¬ 
zant, yet explorers must reject nothing as valueless at 
first, but pick up everything rude or attractive, until the 
investigation can store up in orderly groups what Na¬ 
ture mothers as her own. 

It must be remembered, too, that a single fact 
however well authenticated can scarcely demonstrate a 
general law, but a series develops an hypothesis. There¬ 
fore while Uniology will not reject a description of a 
single human, a single custom, a search for analogous 
facts concludes a scale of comparison. An adept would 
not shun a description of the multitude of contradictory 
feelings which stirred up the minds and feelings of col- 


39 



lective individuals during their existence as a people. 

Development.—The material progress of the human 
race is anterior to its intellectual progress, while moral 
development has its anteriority in intellectual progress. 
Again the greatest stage a nation reaches, and which is 
nothing less than a succession of improvements and the 
result of manifold culture, or the grand total of all de¬ 
velopment, is individuality. 

Material Progress.—No question has occupied the 
human race so thoroughly as that of subsistence. The 
other phases of material progress are its slaves. Agri¬ 
culture, the manufacture of implements, all economic 
considerations, and industry itself, bow before the ques¬ 
tion of best human food. When that question is com¬ 
pletely settled, much of a Nation’s time can be turned 
into other directions. It is acknowledged fact that 
food exerts a great influence upon the temperament, the 
health, the strength and the intelligence of the indi¬ 
vidual. 

Here, woman, because of her natural powers, is pre¬ 
eminent, and already has the question of food developed 
into a science. Woman has always been the bread dis¬ 
penser, and it has been man’s delight to accept at her 
hand food from an apple to the plum-pudding of today. 

From the most primitive stages of food manufact- 


40 


ure, when maize was ground between two flat stones, 
the food question has steadily increased in considera¬ 
tion, until its importance today is what the action of 
foods upon the ailments of bodily and brain organisms 
is. When this can be answered with practical assurance 
the whole science of food will be settled into universal 
benefit. Woman has entered this field of science with 
zest, and although modern improvements have enabled 
her to become somewhat free from this urgent need of 
the human race, so that other fields of science have 
drawn her attention, yet the food question is. by no 
means settled, and still occupies her devoted considera¬ 
tion. Man has always felt his helplessness in this di¬ 
rection, and has striven hard to keep woman occupied 
completely with this subject alone, until very modern 
times. Now the occupation of cook has become a pro¬ 
fessional business for man, so that woman is relieved 
from what would be a burden if carried alone in these 
civilized times. Then, too, food product is a wide in¬ 
dustry; great factories are manufacturing foods, and 
sending them out, hermetically sealed, all over the 
world, so that it would be a waste of time for any one 
but a specialist to devote entire attention to this ques¬ 
tion. 

Implements.—While the human race, the only tool- 


41 


using animals, is constantly adding to this source of 
help, the subject is subservient to that of nourishment.. 
When food changed, tools had to change, and although 
Ethnology in necessity has centered its research upon 
the weapons, tools and implements used by primitive 
man, and has marked each succeeding era through some 
new discovered invention through its detailed improve¬ 
ment, yet this study is identical with other details of 
civilization. 

Here, again, ease and facility play an important 
part in the development of womanhood. 

In regard to weapons, this has grown from individ¬ 
ual need into a national question, and is a subject 
which least interests woman, being a peace-loving ani¬ 
mal. And it is certainly one of the levers of civiliza¬ 
tion, nor do we accredit this fact because of her lack of 
physical powers at the present time. It is certainly a 
touch of Divine inspiration that puts woman above the 
animal instinct that shows forth in man, especially in 
war, when men have acknowledged a wild thirst for 
blood under the influences of battle. 

Shelter.—The movement of the race toward the 
construction of nobler abodes has done its share toward 
ennobling the individual. With attractive shelter, mem¬ 
bers of a family linger about their abode, loath to wan- 


42 


der, and motherhood is the centre of influences. When 
man’s abode was a cave or piled-up slabs, and the wom¬ 
an, enslaved, went out to put in the meagre crop, or 
hunt the woods for berries, man roamed away for miles 
to hunt and fish, or make an attack upon some foe. 

Fire.—Warmth has certainly contributed most to 
the family gathering, which we picturesquely describe as 
our hearth-stone. The noble fire-place, the modern 
stove, the use of natural gas, steam and furnace, make 
a wide chasm between primitive and modern races, and 
later time, when each family, rather than each chief of 
a tribe, obtained a fire-place of their own, individualism 
began to assert itself. 

Commerce and Industry.—These two agencies have 
promoted individualism through national intercourse 
and social development in a recognized degree. Com¬ 
merce has carried to every nation articles at once useful 
and indispensable to civilization. English wares and 
modern inventions carried to Eastern lands promote 
civilization there, while Eastern methods, manners and 
customs, furnish the English mind with corresponding 
wonder and new methods of utilization. Travel brings 
out individuality through association and comparison of 
ideas. It seems to develop and awaken in the individ¬ 
ual innate powers and makes him possessor of ways and 


43 


means, and powers of thought above home associations. 

Industry is a great developer of individual powers ; 
new creations are ever before us, inspiring to perfection. 
Industry is the mother of self-assertion, as law is ante¬ 
cedent of justice. This is brought about through full 
development and intercourse, for civilization makes in¬ 
dustry. The Bushman can see no utility in a chair, 
nor the Indian the convenience of work or government. 

Family development.—While all progress began 
with the existence of the family, and family cares have 
been the most powerful agents in the civilization of fa¬ 
ther and mother, yet the state of perfection of the fam¬ 
ily will never be reached until separate individuality be¬ 
comes a distinct existence. And strange to say, this 
very individuation is having the bitterest fight for its lib¬ 
erty and existence. The lower condition of motherhood 
has long prevented a perfect state. The woman, the 
spoil of victors, knocked about from man to man, from 
tribe to tribe, has she not yearned for a better state of 
things? It was her influence, her creation, her upbuild¬ 
ing, that has regulated human relations; and from the 
rudiments of family existence, the home and paternity 
are sounding a new national life. 

The first descent was traced exclusively through 
mothers, and the tracing descent through the male is an 


44 



idea of far later date. Early religions had as principle 
the worship of Mother Earth, and starting from the sup¬ 
position that religions have always been the expression 
of deepest thought and loftiest aspiration, the Divine 
Mother was recognized as the fountain of existence and 
the source of all right, while the human mother was 
likewise the source of authority. Ethnography supplies 
unmistakable instances of the system of kinship through 
females only. It is now admitted as a fact that maternal 
kinship was anterior to the paternal. As Sir John Lub¬ 
bock puts it: “children were not in the earliest times 
regarded as related equally to their father and their moth¬ 
er; but the natural progress of ideas is, first, that a child 
is related to his tribe generally ; secondly, to his mother, 
and not to his father; thirdly, to his father, and not to 
his mother; lastly, that he is related to both.” 

First, the strong mother, the one of authority, the 
source of the family, then the practice of female infanti¬ 
cide, which rendered women scarce, and which led to 
the captuiing of women hy theft or force from tribe to 
tribe. So struggling against the difficulties of existence, 
sons became the source of strength, both for defence 
and by quest of food; daughters, a source of weakness, 
from cruelty and lack of liberty. 

Nor have these barbarous practices left us. Fifty 


45 


years ago girls were, on being sent to school, enclosed 
in stiff stays and bound, while the corset is by most 
women today regarded as necessary to female elegance. 
When the corset, the last barbarous torture left, is at 
last eschewed, woman’s orginal strength will begin to as¬ 
sert itself. This may take centuries, for centuries of 
cruelty have wrought the transformation. 

The Chinese practice of binding the little girl in¬ 
fant’s feet, is another relic of barbarism. Cracking each 
tender little toe in turn and bending it under, and final¬ 
ly half the foot, until nothing remains but a club to tot¬ 
ter along on. We shudder as we think of it, poor help¬ 
less little babes, and yet that custom does not compare 
with the injury done American girls through the use of 
the corset. The custom of Oriental countries of veiling 
its women, shutting out the sun-rays, is another heath¬ 
enish custom, while female infanticide is still practiced 
in the East. Is there any wonder that woman has been 
left out of the plan of the world ? 

But the next institution of the family and probably 
the last, is the relation of the child to both father and 
mother. 

America is certainly the seat of development for 
perfection in individual progress. Here there is no law 
abridging daughters from sharing equally with sons the 


estate of parents. And it is a frequent custom for the 
wife to give her full maiden name, simply adding her 
husband’s sir name. Through the exertion of noble 
women, we might almost call it the uprising of women, 
laws have become changed favoring women, and when 
women at last succeed, as they surely will, in becoming 
law makers, the most perfect state of society will exist, 
for women have ever been the expression and fountain 
of religions and just aspirations. It will be share and 
share alike when women attain full and original eleva¬ 
tion, for it is their desire that peace, temperance, and 
virtue reign and protect the family. 

Social Development.—The object of political com¬ 
munities today is equality between the inhabitants, after 
the conquest and war, encroachment and enslaving. 
Forces are constantly in operation to increase the lib¬ 
erty of the citizen, and woman, today over-governed and 
ruled down, must become a constituent of political pow¬ 
er before general benefit for all classes governed will be 
the general principle of self-government which civiliza¬ 
tion recognizes as the best for the enjoyment of freedom 
and absence of restraint which we call the blessings 
of civilization. This complete state rests upon the fam¬ 
ily system. 

Development of Intelligence.—Individuation derives 


its resource and strength from the sources of intellect¬ 
ual pursuits, or the sciences in general. Literature, Art 
and Science are closed to no one who thirsts, and few 
are indifferent to knowledge. Our public school system 
is obtaining increasing attention. The individuum is 
obtaining more and more the attention of the public. 

Progress.—The theory of progress centres upon Uni* 
ology. It has only to prove how it measures its work in 
the different periods. The two great principles of social 
order and individual liberty have always clashed and if 
civilization takes possession, it must do so at the exter¬ 
mination of collective administration. 

Uniology has never been developed universally in 
any nation, and must yet reach its highest extent of cul¬ 
ture. It has never reached a higher point than in Amer¬ 
ica and never will go higher until custom does not en¬ 
slave, and mannerism becomes a rude benefit. Individ¬ 
uality has been left out of the scheme of government. 
While true laws subserve the interests of the majority, 
the people’s authority must be guided not by abstract 
principles of justice, nor by self-interest and self-preser¬ 
vation when that self-interest and self-preservation con¬ 
siders the male members of the family only. “The 
world is very young,” says Mrs. Mill, “and has only 
just begun to cast off injustice.” 


*8 


The betterment of the family through social gov¬ 
ernment can not increase vastly without the element of 
motherhood. While the development of fatherhood 
might enlarge the prospect of more perfect home-life, it 
could never embrace the precious and delicate product 
of motherland. Men’s minds and hearts are not so en¬ 
larged that they could embrace a common doctrine of 
love, honesty, justice and self-sacrifice; at least, such 
conditions have never existed, and we have a right to 
feel that no amount of culture would take the place of 
each citizen knowing and understanding and preserving. 

While it is admitted to be right that human beings 
should help one another, the principle that each is the 
best judge of his own interest, would prove that the 
chief end of government is to protect that liberty unless 
the individual rob or defraud another. Energy and self- 
dependence are impaired, and labour, skill and pru¬ 
dence limited, when individuals or classes are cut off on 
the voluntary governmental principle. The condition of 
women at the present time strikes at the root of this 
principle. While women have done much towards leg¬ 
islating for their own betterment and that of the home, 
through circulating petitions, pleading with legislators, 
and arousing public sentiment, it is a degrading condi¬ 
tion of affairs, and absorbs the time and divides the en- 


49 


ergies of our best women. Even if the best results could 
be obtained from this manner of influencing, it has not 
the dignity nor upbuilding power of freedom. 

Uniology.—We have put before the public but an 
outline of a subject which has grown with civilization so 
that all recognize its importance, but which has never 
before been classified. It is gathered in its swaddling 
clothes of infant facts, but it has life, and motherhood 
has the nourishment, as well as the knowledge of its 
bringing-up, and gently rocked in the cradle of Truth, 
breathing the air of purity, it cannot BUT LIVE. 

FINIS. 



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